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Roman_Catholic_1
Guest
How many stars are in the night sky?
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Robert_in_SD
Guest
Even limiting the definition of “denomination” to include only…
[1] differences in the recognition of authority, doctrine and/or morals (as some on this thread suggest doing)
[2a] the answer is “at least one too many.”
[2b] For my source, please see the following:
Jn 10:16 - there shall be one fold and one shepherd;
Eph 4:3-6 - one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father
Rom 16:17 - avoid those who create dissensions;
1 Cor 1:10 - I urge that there be no divisions among you;
Phil 2:2 - be of same mind, united in heart, thinking one thing;
Rom 15:5 - God grant you think in harmony with one another;
Jn 17:17-23 - I pray that you may be one, as we are one;
Jn 17:23 - that they may be brought to perfection as one;
1 Cor 12:13 - in one spirit we were baptized into one body;
Rom 12:5 - we, though many, are one body in Christ;
Eph 4:4 - one body, one Spirit, called to one hope;
Col. 3:15 - the peace into which you were called in one body
There should be one unified christian faith that is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. We are broken into many pieces. What is the point in counting those pieces?
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mommyaprilj
Guest
There are as many denominations as there are discontented people. All it takes is one or two angry people about something the pastor did and it “let’s go start our own church”
Happened a lot when I was growing up where I lived.
Happened a lot when I was growing up where I lived.
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THutch04
Guest
I don’t really have an answer, but rather a question. Would different versions of the same denomination be considered different denominations? Like, would Free Methodists be a separate denomination from United Methodists, and Southern Baptists different from Independent Baptists? Because it seems like that would change the numbers (perhaps very significantly).
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Malachi4U
Guest
I looked in the phone book and there were nearly 400 denominations listed. For just 1 city. I did not double count denominations either if they were listed under various headings.
Hum? I want to follow Jesus so do I just find the nearest street corner with a church or do I study first to find out which church is true? Do I just believe what I want or do I study to find out what was taught the first years after Jesus?
Hum? I want to follow Jesus so do I just find the nearest street corner with a church or do I study first to find out which church is true? Do I just believe what I want or do I study to find out what was taught the first years after Jesus?
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Contarini
Guest
Well, that is part of the problem. I’d distinguish between “traditions” (such as Wesleyanism, Calvinism, Lutheranism, etc.) and “denominations” within a tradition (Wesleyan denominations would be the United Methodist Church, African Methodist Episcopal Church, AME Zion Church, Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, Free Methodists, Wesleyans, Nazarenes, etc.)
The problem is that some Protestant denominations cooperate with each other so closely and recognize each other so completely that you shouldn’t count them as separate churches any more than the RCC and the Maronites, or the Greek and Russian Orthodox, are separate churches.
On the other hand, one definitely should recognize different denominations within a tradition as separate churches when there is genuine disagreement or antagonism between them. Indeed, these days agreements across traditions are often easier than agreements within traditions. Free Methodists and United Methodists do *not *see themselves as members of the same church body. The three African-American Methodist denominations are divided from each other for historical and political rather than theological reasons, but the divisions are real.
In my opinion, the divisions between numerically significant Protestant “denominations” in the sense that interests Catholics (i.e., church bodies that have some significant disagreement or division that goes beyond administrative autonomy) number in the hundreds rather than the thousands. People come up with a figure of thousands by two methods:
- Counting every tiny group as a “denomination,” even if it has a few dozen people; and
- Counting different versions of the same church in different parts of the world as separate churches.
But in the end I think the whole exercise is hopeless. Church unity does not mean the same thing to Protestants that it does to Catholics. That doesn’t mean that we don’t care about it or that we just reduce it to “invisible unity” (though many Protestants do). It means that we have a model of the Church based on fellowship and communion rather than on a top-down hierarchical structure. (Sorry for the loaded language–but you guys use loaded language all the time!) And furthermore, as you love to point out, Protestants differ on the criteria for unity and on the list of “essential doctrines.” So the meaning of such a figure is going to vary depending on the Protestants you’re talking to. Anglicans, for instance, are likely to see themselves as having more in common with Catholics than with fundamentalists. So the fact that there are hundreds or thousands of little Baptist or Pentecostal groups running around isn’t going to have much impact on an Anglican. And in return, many of those same fundamentalist groups may consider Catholics and mainliners as not really Christians at all–so they wouldn’t care about unity with us either.
I think you would do much better asking Protestants: “what Church do you believe in and how are you in unity with other members of that Church? If you think invisible unity is enough, then what does this mean practically? If you think you have some form of visible unity, how is this expressed?”
Lists of denominations drawn from the phone book don’t serve any useful purpose that I can see.
Edwin
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Mickey
Guest
I think that when you hear a number like 30,000, it is probably being counted in this way. Is that fair? I do not know. Some could make the case that if the free methodists and united methodists have different beliefs, they should be counted as two different denominations. However, there is a high number of divisions even if you don’t use this counting process.
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Contarini
Guest
Mickey,
By a standard that would count Free Methodists and UMC’s as the same denomination, there are no more than a dozen or so Protestant “denominations”–maybe 20-25 at the most:
Anglican
Lutheran
Reformed
Methodist/Wesleyan
Pentecostal
Anabaptist
Campbellite
Plymouth Brethren
Pietist
Baptist
Quaker
Generic “Keswick” evangelical
OK, one could add a few more, but that’s pretty much it.
However, I don’t claim that this is the way to number–Free Methodists certainly don’t think they are the same as United Methodists, and who am I to argue with them!
Edwin
By a standard that would count Free Methodists and UMC’s as the same denomination, there are no more than a dozen or so Protestant “denominations”–maybe 20-25 at the most:
Anglican
Lutheran
Reformed
Methodist/Wesleyan
Pentecostal
Anabaptist
Campbellite
Plymouth Brethren
Pietist
Baptist
Quaker
Generic “Keswick” evangelical
OK, one could add a few more, but that’s pretty much it.
However, I don’t claim that this is the way to number–Free Methodists certainly don’t think they are the same as United Methodists, and who am I to argue with them!
Edwin
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O.S.Luke
Guest
It’s also riddled with mistakes… always has been. I wouldn’t use it for apologetics for that reason.
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eleusis
Guest
Well, give it a few minutes, the number will change as one disbands or another decides they “have found the real truth this time” and calls others to come listen to their latest and greatest enlightened way of worship.
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rdscheirer
Guest
Agree with Rich- multiplying by the hour! Have friend who attended Southern Baptist but pastors wife had affair and divorced him so he was “defrocked”- can’t be divorced- so he started his own “Independent Baptist Church”. Lots of “Independent” Baptist churches in the south.
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Jeanette_L
Guest
Six months ago when I first started seriously looking into The RCC, my mother borrowed my book of denominations (which is how my journey got started), she was desparate to try to find some other denomination that might appease herself and convince me not to cross over. She’s still reading, not even half way through the book, and she’s getting very depressed!
I say, way too many denominations to make any sense whatsoever, even to a long time believer. I can’t imagine how a new believer can manouver through the mess without just giving up altogether.
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rjs1
Guest
Whatever the actual number is it makes an absolute mockery of the ONE Church God founded. Jesus said: “You are Peter and upon this rock I shall build my Church.”
Once men started creating their own churches, for whatever reason they may have felt justified, they wrecked the unity of the Church Jesus established. And once they had wrecked that unity there was no stopping the flood of man made denominations that followed.
Once men started creating their own churches, for whatever reason they may have felt justified, they wrecked the unity of the Church Jesus established. And once they had wrecked that unity there was no stopping the flood of man made denominations that followed.
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eleusis
Guest
Jeanette L:
Meanwhile he brings wave upon wave of invaders to attack and sack Rome to try and stomp out the light.
Finally he found a schitzo with personality and with some demonic magic he convinced the guy he was a new Messiah, and through him the devil established a counterfit RCC.
Compare many similarities: Ritual, Traditions, Universiality (“Catholic” means Universal) but they call it the Ummah and Spiritual discipline.
But his infernalness imposed his twisted logic on each making them tinged with evil YET powerful in the human psyche.
So we have this explosion in the Middle East which almost engulfs the Church of Rome.
When this fails he decides to divide the Church, since he couldn’t destroy it then water it down and render it ineffectual. So we have the Reformation.
His efforts nearly worked but now see what is happening? The Protestants have fallen away and become increasingly secular, their Churches are dying (see research on social dynamics and church attendence, the numbers are down) while RCC, ignited by Charismatic movements and powerful leaders like John Paul the Great is the fastest growing Christian denomination in the world. The RCC in the Western Hemisphere is growing through the Spanish American/Latino community as they demographically replace the Anglos.
And by the end of this Century the battle lines will be drawn. Christianity vs Islam.
Well, at least that’s the way it appears to this professional analyst and Master’s student…
I agree with RJS1 and add that we need to look at this situation from the Military Strategic level as seen in the eyes of the enemy, if the Devil was going to attack the Church Jesus founded he had to act fast to stop the beach head so he began the persecutions. Those were thwarted, so while he was trying to stomp out the faith he scoured the world to find a stooge.Six months ago when I first started seriously looking into The RCC, my mother borrowed my book of denominations (which is how my journey got started), she was desparate to try to find some other denomination that might appease herself and convince me not to cross over. She’s still reading, not even half way through the book, and she’s getting very depressed!
I say, way too many denominations to make any sense whatsoever, even to a long time believer. I can’t imagine how a new believer can manouver through the mess without just giving up altogether.
Meanwhile he brings wave upon wave of invaders to attack and sack Rome to try and stomp out the light.
Finally he found a schitzo with personality and with some demonic magic he convinced the guy he was a new Messiah, and through him the devil established a counterfit RCC.
Compare many similarities: Ritual, Traditions, Universiality (“Catholic” means Universal) but they call it the Ummah and Spiritual discipline.
But his infernalness imposed his twisted logic on each making them tinged with evil YET powerful in the human psyche.
So we have this explosion in the Middle East which almost engulfs the Church of Rome.
When this fails he decides to divide the Church, since he couldn’t destroy it then water it down and render it ineffectual. So we have the Reformation.
His efforts nearly worked but now see what is happening? The Protestants have fallen away and become increasingly secular, their Churches are dying (see research on social dynamics and church attendence, the numbers are down) while RCC, ignited by Charismatic movements and powerful leaders like John Paul the Great is the fastest growing Christian denomination in the world. The RCC in the Western Hemisphere is growing through the Spanish American/Latino community as they demographically replace the Anglos.
And by the end of this Century the battle lines will be drawn. Christianity vs Islam.
Well, at least that’s the way it appears to this professional analyst and Master’s student…
P
paolo90
Guest
The exact number of protestant denominations does not really matter, what matters is that they are certainly not one.
All we could do is pray that they see the light of Christ’s Church, the one He built with Peter as its head (Matthew 16:18) - the Church that is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. We should also especially pray for those who loath the Church, those who negatively speak of the Church, hopefully they will stop ignoring the Church’s true identity. Hopefully, they will notice that faith is not a buffet, it is a much more serious matter than that.
All we could do is pray that they see the light of Christ’s Church, the one He built with Peter as its head (Matthew 16:18) - the Church that is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. We should also especially pray for those who loath the Church, those who negatively speak of the Church, hopefully they will stop ignoring the Church’s true identity. Hopefully, they will notice that faith is not a buffet, it is a much more serious matter than that.
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LeahInancsi
Guest
Edwin…I’m not picking on you specifically, but I think Roman_Catholic’s response above of “How many stars are in the sky?” is closer to right. Recently, I’ve heard in the neighborhood of 30,000-40,000.
Your list doesn’t include the Scandinavian demonination my cousin left the Catholic church to join or one of the biggest congregation’s in my home town, Pantego Bible Church. Just look around the corner for a dozen more.
BTW, the Baptists claim not to be Protestant.
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Contarini
Guest
Leah,
I was specifically using the criterion THutch suggested, by which Free Methodists and United Methodists are the same “denomination.” By that criterion the Scandinavian denomination you mention would almost certainly come under the “Pietist” category, and the Bible Church would probably be counted as Baptist (or possibly “generic evangelical,” or less likely Pentecostal or Reformed–various kinds of nondenominational churches can take that label). I said that a better term for such a grouping would be “tradition.”
If you look at my earlier post (#26), I said that I would recognize hundreds of denominations–probably not thousands but certainly more than a dozen or so. If you count every tiny group, then in all fairness we have to count the traditionalist Latin-Mass groups as “Catholic denominations.”
The only way a comparison of “Catholic unity” with “Protestant disunity” will work is if you can claim that non-Protestant Western Christianity is unified. And the only way you can do that is by discounting the Old Catholics and the traditionalists as too small to count. If you do that, then you must logically discount all the Protestant groups of comparable size.
If you define all Western Christian bodies not in union with Rome as “Protestant” then it is meaningless to say that Catholics are unified and Protestants are not. By the same token, I could say that all churches not in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury are “Ganglicans” and could aruge that “Anglicans” are unified and “Ganglicans” are not. If Protestant is a meaningful term, it must mean more than “people who protest the Pope.” It must mean “churches that derive in some way from the Reformation.”
You can still make a powerful case this way. The non-Protestant Western bodies that split from Rome have remained small and not very dynamic. They aren’t credible rivals unless one has a very powerful reason to discount all the alternatives. Protestantism, on the other hand, has split into the various traditions I outlined above, and within most of those traditions there are a number of numerically and historically significant distinct bodies.
You guys really have a much stronger case if you lay off the head-counting. We Protestants have simply failed to establish some kind of coherent consensus position as an alternative to Rome. You are quite right to rub this in. But if you fight over numbers, you will cause Protestants to miss the whole point.
One final note–many Baptists do claim not to be Protestants, though many others are quite fine with the label. If “non-Protestant” is simply a matter of identity, then I have no quarrel. I.e. if all they are saying is “we don’t acknowledge the Reformation as normative and we don’t think we have a lot in common with the churches deriving from the Reformation,” then that’s their business. But often the claim “not to be Protestant” is intended as a historical one. (Many Anglicans make the same claim–and again this is OK as a theological claim but bogus as a historical assertion.) I.e., Baptists will claim to derive from some kind of non-Catholic pre-Reformation tradition. This is historically nonsense, and they can’t be allowed to get away with it (any more than you guys have been allowed to get away with the claim to have remained absolutely unchanged since the days of early Christianity).
Historically, Baptists are an outgrowth of English Separatist Puritanism (with possibly some degree of Anabaptist influence), originating in the early 17th century. Baptist historians recognize this. The people who dispute it are usually not very knowledgeable about history.
Edwin
I was specifically using the criterion THutch suggested, by which Free Methodists and United Methodists are the same “denomination.” By that criterion the Scandinavian denomination you mention would almost certainly come under the “Pietist” category, and the Bible Church would probably be counted as Baptist (or possibly “generic evangelical,” or less likely Pentecostal or Reformed–various kinds of nondenominational churches can take that label). I said that a better term for such a grouping would be “tradition.”
If you look at my earlier post (#26), I said that I would recognize hundreds of denominations–probably not thousands but certainly more than a dozen or so. If you count every tiny group, then in all fairness we have to count the traditionalist Latin-Mass groups as “Catholic denominations.”
The only way a comparison of “Catholic unity” with “Protestant disunity” will work is if you can claim that non-Protestant Western Christianity is unified. And the only way you can do that is by discounting the Old Catholics and the traditionalists as too small to count. If you do that, then you must logically discount all the Protestant groups of comparable size.
If you define all Western Christian bodies not in union with Rome as “Protestant” then it is meaningless to say that Catholics are unified and Protestants are not. By the same token, I could say that all churches not in communion with the Archbishop of Canterbury are “Ganglicans” and could aruge that “Anglicans” are unified and “Ganglicans” are not. If Protestant is a meaningful term, it must mean more than “people who protest the Pope.” It must mean “churches that derive in some way from the Reformation.”
You can still make a powerful case this way. The non-Protestant Western bodies that split from Rome have remained small and not very dynamic. They aren’t credible rivals unless one has a very powerful reason to discount all the alternatives. Protestantism, on the other hand, has split into the various traditions I outlined above, and within most of those traditions there are a number of numerically and historically significant distinct bodies.
You guys really have a much stronger case if you lay off the head-counting. We Protestants have simply failed to establish some kind of coherent consensus position as an alternative to Rome. You are quite right to rub this in. But if you fight over numbers, you will cause Protestants to miss the whole point.
One final note–many Baptists do claim not to be Protestants, though many others are quite fine with the label. If “non-Protestant” is simply a matter of identity, then I have no quarrel. I.e. if all they are saying is “we don’t acknowledge the Reformation as normative and we don’t think we have a lot in common with the churches deriving from the Reformation,” then that’s their business. But often the claim “not to be Protestant” is intended as a historical one. (Many Anglicans make the same claim–and again this is OK as a theological claim but bogus as a historical assertion.) I.e., Baptists will claim to derive from some kind of non-Catholic pre-Reformation tradition. This is historically nonsense, and they can’t be allowed to get away with it (any more than you guys have been allowed to get away with the claim to have remained absolutely unchanged since the days of early Christianity).
Historically, Baptists are an outgrowth of English Separatist Puritanism (with possibly some degree of Anabaptist influence), originating in the early 17th century. Baptist historians recognize this. The people who dispute it are usually not very knowledgeable about history.
Edwin
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